August 25 Writer Birthdays

1836 -Bret Harte, American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California.

1850 -Edgar Wilson Nye, American journalist, humorist, and newspaper founder; he sometimes used the pen name "Bill Nye," after a character in a famous poem by another August 25 birthday writer, Bret Harte.

1913 -Walt Kelly, American animator, cartoonist, and writer who was best known for Pogo but who also worked for Disney.

1921 -Brian Moore, Northern Irish novelist and screenwriter, known for his depictions of life in Northern Ireland after WWII; he was described in the L.A. Times as "one of the few genuine masters of the contemporary novel."

1923 -Dorothy Dunnett, Scottish author of historical novels and detective novels; she was also a portrait painter and a sculptor.

1925 -Thea Astley, prolific and acclaimed Australian novelist and short story writer.

1933 -Patrick McManus, American humor writer whose columns focusing on the outdoors have been gathered into popular books.

Catherine M. Petrini

Who Am I?

I am a published author of 28 books for children and young adults, a former magazine editor, and mom to an 8th-grader. My published works include 20 books for Sweet Valley High and other teen fiction series, all written under pseudonyms. My nonfiction kids' books, written under my own name, are on topics ranging from Dragons to Stonehenge to the Cherokee Indians. In my spare time, I enjoy reading, drawing, photography, traveling, overthrowing the governments of small countries, befriending dragons, slaying demons, and ruining my son's life by making him do his homework.